This is the food pyramid that is being taught now (click on the image for a larger version). I think the fact that it looks like a circus tent is a great commentary on the state of nutrition education. But, the appearance aside, there have been many improvements made but there is still room to improve.
Grains: In the grains section they tell you to eat 6 ounces of grains daily and make half of them whole grain. Why only half? Apparently it is perfectly acceptable to eat “grains” that aren’t even grains anymore and have no nutritional value. They’re just filler anyway, right?
And, if you look at the pictures of food choices, they show hamburger buns, saltines, tortillas and popcorn among a few better options. If you were a kid looking at this, wouldn’t you assume a hamburger, burrito or bag of buttery popcorn would be a good option to get servings of grains?
Vegetables: The first thing that stands out to me is that there is a baked potato in the images of vegetables. While I know there is a debate over whether you can call a potato a vegetable or not, I’m not concerned with what it’s called. The issue is that a potato has as much starch and fiber as a grain. While it does offer some vitamins and minerals, they should be seen as more as a grain in your diet due to the starch (carbohydrate) content. Additionally, corn shouldn’t be a recommended vegetable, especially for those already struggling with diabetic or pre-diabetic conditions as corn causes a spike in blood sugar when eaten. I know it is next to impossible to get most kids to eat green things. But, they will be adults someday and we need to teach them the right foods to eat for health and longevity while they are young so they don’t have to start from scratch at 30.
Fruits: Not much to mention here except they do show a glass of fruit juice and while fruit juice will count as a serving of fruit, many fruit juices have an exceptional amount of added sugar and HFC or contain very little actual fruit. Not to mention drinking a glass of fruit juice will have considerably more calories than eating the a serving of fruit. People who opt for fruit juice beverages with meals thinking they are being healthy because they aren’t drinking soda are actually ingesting just as many calories as they would if they opted for a carbonated drink.
Oils: Luckily this portion is much smaller and less prevalent in the new pyramid, but they still don’t give any serving recommendations. They simply say that oils aren’t a food group but that you need some to be healthy. But how much?
Milk: For some reason this food group isn’t called “dairy” anymore, it’s simply called milk, which may be confusing to some. Especially because they tell you to get 3 cups per day from this food group but then show slices of cheese as examples of foods for the milk group. So, should I eat 3 cups of cheese a day?!
Meats & Beans: The serving size for this group has been reduced from 2 to 3 servings per day to 5 ounces per day. For someone who is active 5 ounces from the protein group is probably too low. Additionally, they show a chicken thigh and deli meats as food options for this group. I’m not sure we want to encourage children to eat fried chicken and processed meats instead of fish or lean turkey.
The pyramid notes that the servings are based on an 1800 calorie a day diet but 1800 calories isn’t applicable to everyone. If I was a growing teenage boy on the football team and only ate this amount of protein and carbs I would probably pass out on the field from exhaustion. But, our nutrition education doesn’t seem to discuss food as fuel for our bodies. It’s over simplified and viewed as just something you have to eat, not something you really need to pay attention to to make sure your body is getting what it needs to function properly.
There are then two notes along the bottom that say you need to find your balance between food and play and you need to “know your limits” with fats & sugars. There is an RDA value for fat and a guideline that no more than 8% of your calories come from sugar. Why aren’t either of those mentioned here? How are people supposed to know their limits if we don’t give them guidelines?
I know the food pyramid is supposed to be a simplified way for kids to understand what to eat. But, I believe we are severely over-simplifying nutrition and need to stop treating children like they are too dumb to understand calories and vitamins. If kids can learn 3 languages in grade school, they can certainly grasp they principles of calories in – calories out, vitamin content in foods, and how bad sugar and fats are in excess. I remember they used photos of lungs from people that smoked for years to scare us into not smoking. They need to start using photos of fatty livers and legs that have been amputated due to diabetes to make children understand how serious good nutrition is.
